Energy Information Administration provides extensive data on petroleum supply and demand conditions

Business Economics, Oct, 2006 by Robert P. Parker

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. Created by Congress in 1977, the mission of EIA is to provide "policy-independent data, forecasts, and analyses to promote sound policy making, efficient markets, and public understanding regarding energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment." (1)

For the many analysts who are interested in recent developments in supply and demand conditions of crude oil and petroleum (hereafter referred to as "petroleum"), this article describes the data and forecasts provided by EIA and how EIA disseminates this information. (2) The first section describes U.S. petroleum data, most of which are based on EIA surveys. The second section describes international petroleum data, which are compiled by EIA from international organizations or private sources. The last section describes EIA's short and long-term forecasts of selected U.S. and international petroleum conditions and provides highlights from the most recent forecasts.

Although this article is about petroleum data available from EIA, other organizations also provide data on petroleum supply and demand conditions. Petroleum data are available from other federal statistical agencies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides consumer, producer, and international price indexes; the Census Bureau provides product data on exports and imports by country of origin and industry data on production and consumption; and the Federal Reserve Board provides industry and market group data on production. (3) Petroleum data also are available from private sources, such as the American Petroleum Institute, IHS Energy Group, Baker-Hughes Inc, and Oil and Gas Journal.

U.S. Petroleum Data

EIA provides daily, weekly, monthly, and annual data on U.S. petroleum conditions. On its website, the "Petroleum page" groups these data into six broad categories: prices; reserves and production; refinery operations; imports, exports, and movements; stocks; and consumption and sales. (4) These categories and the major types of data included in each of them, the frequency of reporting, and the primary EIA report containing these data are shown in Table 1. EIA reports are generally organized around the concepts of "supply" and "marketing." According to EIA, supply consists of crude oil production, refinery production of petroleum products, and imports of crude petroleum and petroleum products, less change in stocks. Marketing consists of prices and sales of crude oil and refinery products.

The reports identified in Table 1 all are available on the EIA website as a single PDF file that consists of the tables with data for the most recent period(s) and supplementary material, such as definitions and information on the EIA surveys underlying the data. Data for the past several years usually appear in a corresponding annual report, which also provides revised data. In addition, data for most tables for all periods are available in downloadable XLS spreadsheets accessible through a system EIA calls "Petroleum Navigator." (5) Only two of the reports identified in Table 1 are regularly available in print. A summary description of each of the reports identified in Table 1, including how it is disseminated, follows.

The Weekly Petroleum Status Report (WPSR) features the most recent supply and marketing data--refinery activity, stocks, net imports, products supplied, and prices. For some items, the report provides regional detail based on Petroleum Administration for Defense (PAD) district. (6) WPSR tables are initially posted each Wednesday on EIA's website at 10:30 AM (Eastern Time) as XLS, TXT, or CSV files. (7) Additional detail and tables are posted at 1:00 PM as HTML and XLS files. The complete report is posted as a PDF file shortly thereafter. (Hard copies of the report are available on request for distribution the next day.)

Petroleum Marketing Monthly (PMM) provides national and PAD District level data for the most recent month and months of the previous year on prices and sales of a variety of crude oils and refined petroleum products. PMM also provides detail on imports by country of origin and on sales of petroleum products by state. For some of the prices, PMM includes EIA projections ("initial estimates") of data for the most recent periods. These estimates, which are replaced with survey data as they become available, are prepared using an autoregressive integrated moving average model that uses at least five years of past values of the series and present and past values of related time series, such as spot prices and heating degree-days. Revised data and additional data at national, regional, and state level are published in Petroleum Marketing Annual (PMA). PMM and PMA are available only on EIA's website. The PMM report is released at the end of each month. The next PMA report is scheduled to be released in August 2007.

Petroleum Supply Monthly (PSM) provides national, PAD district, and state data for the most recent month on production, imports and exports, movements, and inventories of crude oil and petroleum products. Most of the data in PSM are based on preliminary estimates for one month from EIA's Weekly Petroleum Supply Reporting System, estimates from the most recent data from the Monthly Petroleum Supply Reporting System, and estimates published in past issues of the PSM. Revised estimates for the data series published in PSM as well as additional data on offshore production are published in Petroleum Supply Annual (PSA). The PSM and PSA reports are available only on EIA's website. The PSM report is released at the end of each month. The PSA report for 2005, which had been delayed, was released in October 2006; the 2006 report is scheduled to be released in July 2007.